Myth of Disabilities
Authors: Destinee Escoe, Allison Bennett, Allison Palm, & Taylor Brannen
Faculty Supervisor: Jessica Melilli-Hand, MFA, Ph.D.
Abstract:
Our service-learning project is about disabilities. We partnered with the College’s Disability Services. They work with our fellow disabled students at school. Our article that we analyzed was “The Myth of Disability ‘Sob Stories’”. It was written by Pasquale Toscano. In 2013, he was hit by a vehicle when he was on his bike. This accident left him paralyzed due to a spinal injury. He was in college and selected as the Rhodes Scholar in 2017. When he got the recognition, he had some people saying he only got the award because he was disabled, even a professor made that comment. After that encounter he wanted to write about his experience to show that when you are disable you don’t do stuff out of pity, you do it to show that you can do the same things and all the other people. A lot of times people tend to look down of people that are different but what they don’t know is, most people that are “different” have certain abilities that they are amazing at, even if they have trouble with simple tasks. In conclusion, we researched and partnered with the disability services to help show that disabilities don’t label you as helpless as many people tend to believe.
